Modern Maya

The Spanish explorers led by Hernan Cortez arrived in 1519. By then most of the Mayan cities were abandoned or in decline.

One of the last cities to be ‘in business’ was Tayasal. They didn’t know it but Cortez and his men passed within miles of the ruined city of Palenque - once a jewel in the Mayan empire.

Once they’d arrived, the Spanish set about destroying all traces of Mesoamerican culture.

It wasn’t that they didn’t respect the grandeur of what they found in Mexico - one conquistador was even more impressed than he’d been by Constantinople. But as very religious Christians they believed that the ancient Mesoamerican civilisations were pagan and possibly rather evil.

Human sacrifice certainly was something that the European world hadn’t seen for thousands of years - it was associated with devil worship. So they believed it was their moral duty to bring the people they’d found out of their ways - what with all the human sacrifice - and introduce them to Christianity.

But that wasn’t the end of the Maya people. Over six million Maya live in Mexico and Central America today. That’s lots more than the total estimated Maya population during the peak of their so-called Classic period, around 700 A.D.

The Maya who escaped the Spanish, and those who had left the cities before the Spanish invasion - eventually converted to Christianity. When the Spanish told them that the Christian Messiah, Jesus, had sacrificed himself, spilled his own blood to save his followers, they immediately understood - it was just what the Mayan royalty used to do.

However, it is believed that many Mayans secretly carried on with their traditional beliefs. They transposed their Tree of Life, the sacred symbol of cosmic unity, onto the Holy Cross; their pantheon of gods morphed neatly into the array of Catholic saints. Today, offerings of corn are still made at altars hidden in jungle caves. It’s even said that a few discreet Maya daykeepers in the Guatemalan highlands still follow the 260-day religious calendar, the Tzolkin.

Find out more about the Maya